THE LAVAL HOUSE

Summary

Laval House is a “private house,” located near the Union. The reason why I call it “private house” is that various people live in the house, but you can drop by it anytime if you want. Father Bill Christy is one of the people who live there. He is very kind and enthusiastic.
The house has a drawing of a beautiful mural on its wall, which is an African woman. Inside this house, you can see many unique ornaments such as masks, quilts and so on from around the world. Nevertheless, the structure of this house looks like authentic American traditional style.

Laval House: About Me

INTERVIEW WITH FATHER BILL CHRISTY

Who can use Laval house?

So, you can use the Laval house. The Laval house is the house for our seminarians at Duquesne. So that means these are young men who are interested in becoming part of the spiritans and the spiritans are a religious group of priests and brothers.

And so, if there's a young man who wishes to become part of our religious community, then they stay here with us.

Why is there the Laval house on campus? Is it different from a church?

Normally, we would have around two priests staying in the house and then the young men who are interested in joining the priesthood this year. We don't have any of the young men present in the house currently. They've actually gone to Chicago for the year. So, I'm here by myself at the moment. Just keeping the house open.

The Laval House features a painting of Jacque Laval, whom the house and estate are named after. When asked about the portrait Father Bill Christy responded:

“In America Jacque Laval is often referred to as James LaValle. He was a French spiritan, a member of our religious order and he was a missionary to Mauritius, a country in East Africa.

So, he was born in France and went and served as a missionary in Mauritius and he was very, very famous. He was also a very holy man, a man who brought many people to Faith. And so those pictures are pictures of him.”

After this Father Bill pointed the various pictures of Jacque Laval around the house.

How many people live at Laval House?

it's just me, which is unusual. Normally we've had usually for 5 priests living here at a time and then either two or three of the students living here.

What other things do you do at Duquesne University beside Laval House?

I'm also the University Chaplain and I'm the director of our campus ministry. So as Chaplin, my job goes beyond denomination. So, Chaplin means that I'm here for the spiritual welfare of every student on campus and usually if they're not Christian or if they're not Catholic that means assisting them to find their place and feel welcomed.

Do you prefer to add more information that I haven’t asked about?

All this used to be were city streets and all of this area was just houses and houses. And so, the university would buy up two or three houses and then they would knock them down and build. This is the last of the original houses. It was the last one, and so this part of the house was built in 1885, and the other half of the house was built in 1890.

Laval House: Work